I don't know about this movie. I was pretty excited to see it, and then an Indian woman decided to run a red light and t-bone my roommate and me in the middle of an intersection, completely destroying my car (we're all fine by the way, so no need to worry). That being said , once the movie got started my problems started to seem small compared to those of Samuel and company, who were perhaps dealing with the most implausible movie plot since Dunston Checks In. I wasn't expecting anything more than the film's title implied, other than maybe one of two great Samuel L. Jackson I'm-taking-myself-too-seriously-in-a-movie-that-would-have-killed-any-other-legitimate-actor's-career. Honestly, can you imagine if Morgan Freeman had been in this film? Or even Denzel Washington? Wesley Snipes probably could have pulled it off, but then we would have been looking at a whole different kind of comedy.
You undoubtedly know the plot for this film already. Someone manages to sneak a time-release crate of a myriad of different snake species into the cargo hold of a 747. It is a 747 built like no other (the cockpit is obviously located directly above the main coach cabin, yet an access panel in the ground leads to an "in-between" floor. But then, if it weren't for this bit of imagination, how would the snakes attack the pilots! The plane is full of the usual motley crew of badly drawn stereotypes, my favorite being the bastard foreigner who hates dogs, babies, and Americans and eventually ends up inside the belly of a python (or boa, I can't tell the bloody difference).
Who would ever bother with this many different kinds of snakes? Why not just get a big batch of mambas, coral snakes, and vipers? The python was a big-ass waste of space (taking up twenty times more space than any other serpent, and only dispatching with one human...and not even an important one). The spitting cobras were a nice touch, but why were there scarlet king snakes? They aren't even poisonous. And if you are able to sneak a time-release batch on snakes onto the plane, why not just sneak on a bomb? I guess the answer is that then you couldn't make a movie called Snakes on a Plane. But who knows.
The big payoff line was a little bit of a disappointment, because I knew it was coming...and nothing topped that scene in the diner from Pulp Fiction ("Tell that bitch to be cool! Say, 'BE COOL BITCH'!"). The best bits of the film came at the beginning - snake to the hot girl's nipple, snake to the penis, snake to the eye. I suppose there are only a certain number of ways a snake can kill someone, but still...I need more. Our good friend Kenan Thompson (of All That! and Goodburger fame did well, and the rest of the cast was serviceable with the limited script - a script by the way that was rejected by 30 studios in 1995 under the title Venom. I wonder why it would have been rejected?
In the end, we have a movie that is only popular because of internet buzz and Samuel L. Jackson. I'm not saying that's bad, just that it could have very easily turned into another Ghost Ship. It will easily recoup it's $35 million budget, but I feel pretty confident that interest will wane significantly after the first week. It was worth my $7 student ticket, but I would have rather seen Little Miss Sunshine. Oh well, when I get a new car I suppose I can see as many movies as I want. Until Indira Gandhi decides to try and kill me again.
With Snakes on a Plane you get exactly what you should expect.
The Verdict: B